Lunch with a bit of Gusto!

I love that I am so close to Jenny and Abby. They came over today, and we had a yum-yummy lunch with tortellini pasta, and salad, and peanut butter bars. Then we watched a movie, and went swimming. Abby absolutely loved the water! Jenny said this was the first time she has really gotten into swimming, and floating, and kicked her legs, and splashed. It was sooo cute! We have plans for more swimming days. Did I mention that I love summer!!! :D

So, I brought out the Parmesan Cheese to add to our pasta, and this is what it said on the bottle: "A lively blend, to sprinkle with gusto over your favorite Italian dishes." I can't say that I've ever sprinkled parmesan cheese on top of my food with GUSTO before, but I had a picture in my mind of the little chef from the Muppets. He would do it justice, don't you think?

It looks new again!!

I took my car in to get it washed and vacuumed, and it looks so nice, and the color sparkles! On my way home, it felt like I was driving a brand new car. It needed a car wash really bad.

The Beach

Here we are soaking up some sun at the Beach last week in Cali. I was sooo excited to go since it had been a while. There's something so relaxing about sitting on the beach, and listening to the waves, and walking along the water in the sand. Summer is my favorite!!!

Thanks, Ben, for putting up the umbrella!

Abby loved playing in the sand...

So did Ben :) We covered him up

We had a great time! (This is one way to avoid getting sun burned)



Happy Anninversary Ben and Jess! Thanks for spending some of your special day with us!!

California

We had a great time seeing Ben and Jess and our extended family in California last week. (Ben did impressively well his first year of Medical School. He got all A's, with a few A-'s, WOW!) We stayed with Grandma Lee, and visited Chuck and Elsa, and Aunt Mary while we were there. They look great, and we had a good visit with each of them.

What an amazing view of the LA skyline from their back porch .

Chuck and Elsa have a beautiful garden, and Abby was thrilled to have time to run around on the grass (which is quite the luxury when you live in Arizona).

Aunt Mary gave us Milky Way candy bars during our visit, and Abby is trying to take Ben's candy bar away from him. Funny girl!

"I wish they all could be California girls!"

Good friends at the Scottsdale Train Park

I have taken Abby on several outings, just the two of us, since I've been here. Our last outing together was with my dear friend Criscell, from college, who lives 45 minutes away, and we have been able to get together a few times already! It's such a blessing to have good friends, and be so close! We went to this cute Train Park on a Saturday. We had a really fun time. They had a playground, model trains, a carousel, train rides, and ice cream! Here we are riding the little train. The kids loved it!

At the end of the day, I went on one more train ride with the girls. I think their favorite part was the tunnel near the end.

What a darling family. Caysja was so sweet, and she and Abby enjoyed playing together.

HUGS!Doesn't she look just darling in her hat!!

Here we are when we first arrived at the park, and just finished putting on sunscreen before we met up with our friends. She wore these glasses just long enough for me to snap a picture.

This train is at the entrance of the park. It was closed the day we went, but usually you can walk through it and see what the inside of the cars look like.

Bubbles!!!

Two weeks ago, I went over to Jen's house, and this is what I saw! Isn't she adorable!! Abby was doing her trick where strattles the crib and "rides," and she was so proud of herself. This was after her trick :)BUBBLES!!!

Abby loved popping them. This particular solution lasts a long time, and they were covering the floor, and our hair, and it was so cute to see how excited Abby was! She walked around and popped the ones in our hair and on the floor.

Here's Abby laughing, and trying to catch some on her tongue

My roommates

Beth

Megan

I just wanted to upload some pictures of my cute, FUN, sweet roommates. I feel blessed to be around such great girls!

Last night we had friends over for a fondue party! We had a ton of fun! Jenny was so sweet and let me borrow her fondue pots! I found a fantastic tasting Butterscotch Fondue recipe. We also made a chocolate fondue. It had been a while since I had fondue, but it tastes sooo good :)

"Follow the 'Greenfield' Road"

So, when you take the freeway exit to get to my house, you have to turn onto Greenfield Road. And all the chairs at Church say "Greenfield" on the backs of them. The counselor in our Bishopric asked me if I was related to the famous Greenfields this street is named after. Nope, I'm not. I told him and his wife that our family is from California, and Sis. Perry mentioned that her Dad part-owned an insurance business with a Henry Greenfield out in CA. I said that was my Grandpa's name. How cool would that have been if they really knew my Grandpa, and could tell me stories about him! But, I called Grandma, and he wasn't my Grandpa. Oh well.

I was telling Jenny and Jake about the popular Greenfield name where I am living, and he said at church I could go up to someone and say, "Can you please move- you're sitting in my chair." And they would probably say, "Oh, does it have your name on it?" And I could say, "Yes, it does!" Ha, ha. It made me laugh, but I'm not going to take his advice :)

Tanning? No...Swimming

Last Saturday I got together with my good friend Wendy from BYU. She has a beautiful home down here, and invited my roommate Megan and I to come try out her pool. Wendy and I had talked that morning about getting together around 3:00, and Megan and I were all ready to go. Wendy didn't answer her phone when we called her before we left, but we figured that since we had a 30 minute drive to her home, she'd probably be there by the time we arrived. Well, we were wrong. And it was really funny. We waited for about 15 minutes, and I decided to set up my beach towel on the lawn, and started putting on sunscreen, under a shady tree so we could hop right in the pool when Wendy got home. And Megan decided to blow up her inner tube, and lay on it on the driveway.

Two different neighbors asked us what we were doing. I'm sure it looked really funny seeing us lay out on the lawn in the shade, with an inner tube, putting on sunscreen. Nope, we were not trying to get some sun on the front lawn in the shade. We were out there for about 20 minutes, and Wendy got home. We thought it was a funny memory!

Wendy's backyard made me feel like I was on vacation in a resort. Apparantly the previous owner was a landscape architect. There was beautiful rock work, and lots of palm trees.

It's Abby Time

I have been able to watch Abby for a couple of hours on two occasions this past week, and I have really enjoyed spending time with this little cutie. Last week we went to the Discovery Park, and swung together on the swings, and watched the ducks in the pond, and then came back to my house for lunch, and we watched some of Finding Nemo (her all-time favorite movie). Abby is so fun. I love her sense of humor. She loved playing with my water bottle, and taking a drink out of it. And she would just laugh! I love her cute smile.

Yesterday I took Abby to the Phx Zoo. It was a very nice day, and not too crowded. I have to say that Abby was sooo good! I had a great time. When we got to the zoo in the morning, it was time for Abby's breakfast. She loved watching the birds during her meal. I looked over, and noticed that the giraffes were right to the edge of the fence, so I turned her around so she could watch them. Abby seemed to enjoy seeing all the animals. Whenever I said, "Should we go see the Cougars?" or the monkeys, or the elephants she would say "Cou-gar" or "Mon-key." It was really cute. After the first animal or two that we saw I asked Abby if she could say bye bye to whatever we were looking at. And she would wave and say "bye bye." Then she started saying bye bye to each of the animals we saw all on her own, and waving. It was so cute, and she loves to say the sounds each animal makes. I love my niece!! On our drive home, Abby wanted to hear some music, and she said "Song! Noise!" So I put on the song "Catch a Falling Star," and we used our hands to create glowing stars, and she loved it, and was in the backseat dancing in her chair. And then she would say, "Gin! Gin" (again).


We were walking around a shaded part of the zoo yesterday, where there are close-up bronze statues of the animals around a pretend waterhole, and I looked over from the other side of this fence, and thought these were also fake peacocks, but then I did a double take, and walked around the other side to see these beautiful feathers!

It was such a beautiful day, and I just love this picture!

The monkeys are my favorite. This orangutan decided he wasn't getting enough shade, so he found a way to create his own.

I love this girl, and her smiles :)

This is Abby at the park in her darling hat.

I love the fabulous places there are to eat around here. Jenny introduced me to a place called the Wildflower Company yesterday. They have really good sandwiches and salad. And I love Trader Joes. They have delicious pizza and pasta, hummus, granola... I think that I'll have to stock up on some things to take back with me :)

I love these darling throw pillows I found at 'Cost Plus World Market' the other day. That's a really cool store. They have things from all around the world.

Arizona and Abby

Here are some pictures of my new house.

Well, I am having a blast here in Arizona. It's funny... my roommates, and Jenny, and Jake's family are telling me that since I've been here there's been a cold spell, and I should expect temperatures to rise 30 more degrees. I already think it's hot, but I did expect temps to be worse. I have the nicest roommates, and we live in a very cute house. I can't tell you how excited I am to be going to the musical "Wicked" next month!! The show coming here in July, and my roommates and I are going. Yay!! I have always wanted to see it, and even though it was playing for a while in Salt Lake City, I didn't want to pay $300 for a ticket. Did I mention that I'm so excited to see it!! :) We also have plans as roommates to see the new Harry Potter movie next month.

I'm about 10-15 minutes away from Jenny and Abby and Jake, and I love it! Yesterday we spent the evening at Rob and Nancy's house. After dinner, Jake and Ted went off to play a basketball game, so their wives went to cheer them on. I think their team name is so totally random. They are called the 'Frisky Dingos'. Anyway, Nancy and I had fun tending Abby and Anya. They are so cute!! At one point Anya had gone to bed, so Nancy and I were talking in the living room upstairs while watching Abby. I noticed that it was quiet, then Abby came over to me, and she was chewing something. I said, "Abby, what are you eating? Open your mouth for Aunt Kate... let me see what you are eating." She wouldn't open her mouth, so I said "Go show BeNoi (Nancy) what you are eating." Nancy was able to get a finger in her mouth and fish out what she was eating. She smelled it, and said, "It's a dog biscuit." Oh, funny. We read the outside of the box, which stated how healthy these snacks were. It sounded like they were healthier than what we ate for dinnner;) We laughed, and gave Abby a cookie to eat instead.

Yesterday Jenny, Abby and I went to In-N-Out Burger for lunch. Yum! Abby was being so cute. She would imitate anything that I said, and I was getting her to laugh in so many ways, from 'He, he, he' to 'Ho, ho' to 'Whaa-ha-ha.' I am so excited to take her to the park by my house tomorrow. She laughed whenever I said "ooga-booga," and she even said it a couple of times. I said 'somby- comby," and she said "commy, commy." Jen and I had a lot of fun shopping since I've been here. And yesterday we found some cute things on sale at Target. I found a very cute swimsuit, and I am excited to go swimming in the near future. Our neighborhood has two community pools.

I am so happy